Polishing the Stone
by TriablePack
Summary: This story is about two dwarves adopted by Thorin Oakenshield. Both are female, but the first one born was raised as a male. The story follows right before the Hobbit and after the destruction of Erebor.
1. Prologue

I never knew of the kingdom that was; I was born after the dragon and the flames. All that I can recall is a life on the road, traveling from one place to another. And that is where I was told I was born, on the road, neither here nor there. No definitive location, no place to call home. My sister was also born on the road. During our travels between one man village to another.

My father was a blacksmith, a maker of some of the finest swords and axes ever weld after the flame. He raised me as a son, though I was born a daughter. Said it was unsafe to not have a home and the first born to be a girl, there was no way to protect me. So being raised as a son, I could provide my own protection. A female dwarf was a rare and valuable thing. After my sister was born, Caril, (Kah-rill) my mother refused to allow my father to raise her as a boy. She always said when they would argue that she wanted to 'keep' one of her daughters.

Mother never looked me in the eye, ashamed of what I had become. Even after father died  
she did not speak or look at me, talking through my sister. She did not live much longer after my father died, too bitter with fate and life to carry on. I managed, even though it cost me greatly, to have my parents buried together. I chiseled words of the old language, by my sister's instructions on how they looked and were written. Mother made sure she knew the way to write old language and traditions of our people, while my father taught me about smithing and how to be a man.

Caril's and my story begins after the death of our parents, when we first met Thorin Oakenshield.


	2. Chapter 1

I remember when I first laid eyes on Thorin Oakenshield, I was still considered a youth and he stood a foot or more taller than me. He looked like any other wandering dwarf, with the way he was dressed, but what set him apart was the air around him and the look in his eyes. I was in awe of this dwarf, with his black beard and gleaming axe.

He turned to look at me as if he could feel me staring within the makeshift smithery. I had been in there all day, sweat and grime caked my face and every inch of my exposed skin. I had yet to bathe that week and had been in a fight just the other day. Black eye still shining and my split lip still swollen.

My fight was with another dwarf who wanted to take my younger sister with him. Keeping my promise to our mum I refused his offer. The persistent dwarf returned daily, he even dared to woo my sister without my presence. I warned him to back down or I would get angry. He then decided that my opinion did not matter, reckoning that I was young (though just a decade or half younger than himself), and noticing that there was not single hair on my chin. So, before he finished mocking my inability to grow facial hair, I began to see red and my fist connected with his nose.

The fight ended the way most do. Others stepping in to break it up and then the process to find out why it began. The restraints, the calming of both sides, and to resolve the issue, the caravan leader was called. I, being in the right to defend my sister and my honor, was free to go about my business, while the other dwarf (in a far worse condition than I, much to my satisfaction) was fined and banned from trade or association with the caravan.

Though I received my unjust punishment later that evening, a scolding from my sister. She lectured me as she cleaned my injuries, while cooking, and all the way through dinner. It wasn't till almost time to sleep when she finally laid the issue to rest and I could barely hear her mumble a thank you as she rolled over farther into her cot to sleep.

That night I rested easy, thinking to myself that things would go back to how they were. Little did I realize that everything was about to change in the appearance of a dwarf in a blue cloak and common clothes.

Thorin strode into the smithery, ignoring the other smiths as he walked straight to my station. I concentrated on the work before me, new shoes for the horses. The job passed down to me by an older smith, informing me that the work was too lowly for him but just right for me. A common occurrence within the smithery, being too young to do any work of real importance. I kept my nose to my work, endeavoring to ignore the imposing dwarf in front of my station.

The forge master, noticing a promising customer, waddled as fast as he could to my station. It was quite impressive how he could maneuver through the different stations without knocking things over with his incredible mass. Huffing from his haste for gold, "how can I assist you, sir? My name is Delg, I am the forge master of this smithery." He gazed down at Thorin as if he were a prize. His newly adopted tone and manner of speaking made me sick to my stomach. His obvious greed for gold had made his voice lighter and his manner of speaking became more subservient. Man's need for more, never ceases to astound me.

Without passing the forge master any indication that he noticed him or heard him, he spoke directly to me "what is your name, young dwarf?" Startled to be spoken to directly, it took me a moment to respond. "Naril (nAh-rill), my name is Naril. Son of Nowil (know-ill)." He raised an eyebrow at this, "son, you say?" By this time the forge master was well irritated, never before had he been thoroughly ignored by a customer.

"If you are not going to buy anything then I am going to have to ask you to leave this establishment," he demanded straightening up. The dwarf continued to stare at me, and after a moment he responded, "I would like for this young dwarf to make me a sword," without ever breaking eye contact. Delg spluttered, "b..b...but sir, that is unheard of! He is but a child dwarf, without a shadow of a hair on his chin." He gestured to my reddening face, "he cannot make you a weapon of any quality."

I began hearing the sound of wood splintering and felt the handle of my hammer crack. The customer, I would later know as Thorin, spared a moment's glance at the hammer in my hand before turning to the forge master. "That is of no concern," he then dropped a dark green purse on my station, "I want this boy to make me a sword, I care not of the end result. I am willing to pay fifteen gold pieces, five now and ten after its completion."

There was a sudden clattering noise, and the smithery had gone quiet. I had dropped my hammer. Fear flooded through me as I awaited the blow to the head for my transgression, but none came. The forge master shocked gaze was trained on the customer, as were the eyes of all the other smiths. Delg took a moment to gain his composer, "I cannot allow this…"

The strange dwarf cut him off. "Why are you denying me? I have provided a significant amount of gold, and I did not give a preference to the type or quality of the sword," he looked at the forge master skeptically, "what is your concern? Why do you fear this young dwarf making me a sword?" Delg became red, no one had dared to challenge him before.

At one moment I believed that the forge master might snub his bulbous nose at the customer. Alas the lure of the gold was too great; he hitched on a horrible smile and bowed as far as his mass would let him. "A thousand pardons sir, I am sure the lad would be glad of the experience."

The dwarf seemed satisfied with this answer, I suspected that he was used to getting his way. "I will return in a three days time, to see the progress. I expect the finished product within a fortnight."


	3. Chapter 2

After the strangeness that presented itself at the forge, I was relieved to head back to what my sister and I, for the time being, call home. I did not register at first the familiar blue cloak standing outside and my sister barring the entrance. "I am sorry, but I will not receive you till my brother is home," she stated firmly. He chuckled slightly. "That is fine by me, young dwarf. I want to speak to you and your...brother," the way he said the word burned my ears.

"What is it you have to say?" He turned his gaze to my direction, as did Caril. "Brother," Caril's voice rang with relief.

"Good you are here," the stranger said as he nodded his approval, "this discussion is best done in private quarters." He swung out his arm indicating our lodgings, as if he was inviting me inside his home and not mine. I began to fume, but seeing the concern on Caril's face I tried to temper myself.

"Very well, sir." The word came out in a sort of defiant way, but the stranger seem to take no notice or seem to care. Then without further invitation he swept into my home. Caril exchanged a concern look to me, and followed him inside. I followed thereafter and found him in my chair.

He looked around the makeshift room as if surveying it. Our two beds on either side of the room, with the stove in the middle for warmth and cooking, and the little shelf set between Caril's bed and the stove. She kept a few trinkets there; the few hair combs and ribbons I could afford for her, the picture of father and mother, and a wheedled horse that I had once made. She mostly kept the cooking supplies there along with the cooking she did from that day. A trunk each at the foot of our beds, where we kept our clothes, and the tub located in the corner. To the table and chairs, on which he was sitting on, that sat in the middle of the room towards the entrance.

My sister offered him a spot of brandy and some bread she had baked during the day. He took the offering with the air of a polite noble. Impressive though he was, I grew irritable. "Sir, what is the reason for you to be in our home?" Caril shot me a glare. It was customary to be a welcoming host, which I was not.

He surveyed me from where I stood, nonplussed by my manner. "This." From underneath his cloak he procured a dingy letter. "This is a letter sent to me by your father." I stared at the letter in his hand. It was worn down by the extensive venture it went through. "A letter from father?" Caril sounded hopeful and wary of the letter. I held out my hand to receive the letter. He did not release the letter to my care.

"In this letter your father, upon his death, asked me to care for your mother, sister, and you. I had hoped to find the three of you well, but your mother has seemed to join your father." He kept his eyes steady with mine, as I took in every word he said.

"She grew sick and died not long after our father," Caril spoke softly. I held his gaze as I sat in my sister's chair, across from him. After a while, where he seemed to size me up, he unfolded the letter. He did not hand me all the contents of the letter sent to him by our father but two papers folded within the bundle he held in his hand.

As I unfurled the part of the letter in my hands, Caril shifted ever so slightly next me as to read close to my shoulder. I feigned reading the letter by furrowing my brow in concentration. "This states that you are Thorin Oakenshield," my sister looked at the dwarf in wonder, "and that our father wants us to go with you."

Thorin looked amused by how Caril stood behind me and how she was the one to confront him about the contents of the letter. "I owe your father a great debt, that I have had no way of repaying. That is till now."

"Where will you be taking us?" I asked gruffly.

"To the Blue Mountains," I could hear Caril gasp in surprise.

"I will give you a fortnights time to decide if you are coming with me." Then he left without a further word.


	4. Chapter 3

Eyes closed, I mulled over the events of the day in my head as I sat there in the tub enjoying my weekly bath. Caril sat in her chair behind my head, scrubbing the soap into my hair and the grime out, lulling me into a kind of stupor.

"Naril?" I barely heard her, she was so quiet.

Keeping my eyes closed I responded. "Hmm?"

"What are we going to do?" She asked a little louder.

I did not need her to elaborate, "what do you think we should do?"

"I go wherever you go."

I nodded. From that a moment a thought occurred to me, that the only thing that mattered was that I need to do right by Caril and keep her safe. Even if that means leaving the only life we have ever known to travel with a dwarf we had just met.

Then a thought occurred to me, "Do you think he knows the family secret?" This time I did not need to elaborate.

"I doubt it, why?"

"I get the feeling that he knows, that something tipped him off. Maybe Father said something, maybe something I did or said," I sighed frustrated. "He makes me uneasy."

"I think you are intimidated."

"Excuse me?!" I jumped up from my bath staring at her. "I am not intimidated! Naril son of Nowil does not cower in front of another dwarf, he does not shame his family."

She placidly tapped on my shoulder to sit back down in the tub. "Now now brother," she cooed soothingly, "I know you do not shame your family, I am not ashamed. You are my beloved brother." She braided my hair and placed the family bead into my hair, then leaned back to get a good look. "Looks good."

After Caril went to bed I stayed up, using what little candle light I had to design a sword for Thorin. All dwarves know about the story of the great warrior Thorin Oakinsheild and I was entrusted to create a sword for him. To not shame my father who had taught me my trade, I will make a sword worthy of this mighty dwarf.


End file.
